Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Review: A Practical Flip Phone

Look, fun is fun, but sometimes boredom is better.

A flip phone steeped in nostalgia, available in bold colors, and the ability to run apps on the external screen? With inviting wallpapers and fun UI elements? That’s cool. It’s also no Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6. But while I enjoyed using the Motorola Razr Plus — game Flip phone – reliability always wins.

Samsung’s latest clamshell-style foldable phone is a light update to last year’s model. It costs $1,099, which is a hundred dollars more than last year, but still about as much as flagship phones cost these days. The inner and outer screens get a little brighter in direct sunlight, the battery is a little bigger, and the main camera is improved, plus, of course, the latest Qualcomm chipset.

This paragraph could describe any number of new Android phones this year. And in the case of the Z Flip 6, it’s a good indicator of how far Samsung’s clamshell phones have come. Last year’s update from a tiny overlay screen to the current 3.4-inch OLED took the Flip series from “eh, this is pretty cool” to “ok, this is something.” It’s a far cry from Samsung’s earliest attempts.

But the Z Flip 6 hasn’t quite reached parity with slab phones yet; it’s certainly not the coolest flip phone. Sure, it’s the best SAMSUNG flip phone — I just wish it borrowed a few ideas from the competition.

If I’d never picked up a Motorola Razr Plus, I’d think the Z Flip 6’s external screen was pretty damn good. But the Razr’s larger, higher-resolution screen frames all the camera and flash holes, making the Flip 6’s external screen, which is set back from the entire surface, look heavy and cramped by comparison.

And not to get too carried away wallpapers, but samsung’s best idea for new wallpapers for the outer screen is… a donut that bounces when the phone moves? There are so many cool things you can do with that! the moto wallpapers are colorful and inviting, there’s a cute record player that spins when you play a sound, and i swear one of the background options is blurple. the z flip 6 has a proper always-on display this time, but it lacks the sense of fun i’d expect from a flip phone. motorola has a mode that turns the entire phone into a retro flip phone, for god’s sake. let’s live a little.

The Flip 6’s home screen is a bit more customizable than last year’s, which limited you to swiping through a bunch of full-screen widgets. Now, it’s more like a traditional home screen. You can still choose a full-screen widget or add multiple smaller widgets to the same panel. The result feels a lot more streamlined; I don’t have to dedicate an entire panel to a timer; I can just add it as a smaller widget on the weather and calendar screen.

And while I really enjoyed the playfulness of Motorola’s screen, Samsung’s widgets are more reliable. Specifically, the Spotify panel on the Razr Plus’s screen often has to refresh before it works. The Spotify controls on the Z Flip 6 work flawlessly. The fun doesn’t go very far.

Still, Motorola’s method of approving apps to run on the outer screen is far superior to Samsung’s. Out of the box, Samsung only lets you run a handful of full apps on the small screen. To add others, you have to go through a convoluted process: download Good Lock and another module from the Galaxy Store, then add the launcher as a widget on the outer screen. Motorola doesn’t require any of that fiddling.

It’s worth complaining about, because I still think the ability to run a full app on the external screen is one of the best things about a foldable phone. Is it the perfect experience to open Strava in a little square? No! But I can tap, say, two things to start recording a bike ride without having to deal with everything else on my phone. It’s great.

Typing messages on the small-screen keyboard is still a bit funny, but it’s another feature I appreciate in a flip phone, even if it’s objectively a worse user experience. It’s ideal for when I’m in the middle of something and want to send a quick response to a text message. As an alternative to tapping those little keys, Samsung uses AI to suggest some responses based on previous messages in the thread. Like many generative AIs, the replies seem to be almost normal, but never entirely correct.

This is the part of the review where I would normally talk about a bunch of other stuff like performance and display quality, but you know what? It’s all good. It’s 2024 and it’s hard to buy a bad flagship-level phone. The internal screen? It’s good. The bend is still there, but you can’t really see it when you’re looking at the phone straight on, and it’s never really bothered me. Processing speed? Connectivity? Mouthfeel? I’m kidding about that last one. But it’s all good.

Even the battery life is good, which is an achievement compared to flip phones from just a few years ago. The Flip 6 will get you through a full day of heavy use, but you’ll be in the single digits by bedtime. There are plenty of other $1,000 phones with better battery life, starting with Samsung’s own Galaxy S24 Plus. If battery life is a priority, this flip phone may not be for you.

Sand in the dent can really ruin your day – and the same goes for a foldable phone. The Flip 6 has an IP48 rating, meaning it’s fully waterproof, but god help me if the hinge absorbs a grain of sand. That “4” looks a lot better than the Razr Plus’ non-existent dust rating, but it simply means the phone is protected from foreign objects larger than 1mm. That said, I’ve been pretty brutal with my Z Flip 6 review unit over the past week. It survived being thrown into a pile of dusty bags, but I can’t say how well it would hold up over years of that kind of abuse.

Flip phone cameras are still catching up to flip phones. Samsung addressed that this year by upgrading the Z Flip 6 to a 50-megapixel main camera sensor. Image quality seems to be as good as any flagship phone, though there’s no telephoto lens if you want to get closer to your subject — just a digital zoom and an additional ultra-wide camera. Motorola went in the opposite direction with the Razr Plus, swapping the ultra-wide for a 2x telephoto lens. That’s a good move in theory if you prefer taking portraits to sweeping landscapes, but Motorola’s overall image processing isn’t as good as Samsung’s. Samsung phones really do take the best portrait shots, and the Z Flip 6 is no exception.

Samsung works hard to sell the idea that flip phones work just as well as any other phone, and haven’t you seen Olympians take pictures with one? Don’t you want that too? But while there are things I love about the Z Flip 6, it’s still not a phone I’d recommend to everyone. Day-to-day durability is good, but how it handles dust in the long term is still unclear. The Z Flip 6 comes with a 12-month warranty when you buy it from Samsung in the US, but that doesn’t cover damage caused by exposure to dust.

The Galaxy Z Flip 6 makes sense if Really you want the benefits of an external screen — less so if you just find the novelty appealing. You can easily find better battery life and cameras in a regular phone. The Moto Razr Plus is more fun. But if you’re sold on the idea of ​​a clamshell phone, Samsung’s slow, steady approach is your best bet.

I found that external screen incredibly useful, and while Samsung lacks a bit of imagination in terms of the UI, it works consistently, unlike Moto. Similarly, Samsung’s track record with software support is excellent: flagship phones get timely updates, and the Z Flip 6 will get seven years of OS updates. Motorola makes a charming flip phone, but it only gets four years of software support, and new OS updates can be slow to arrive.

Software updates, reliability, and image processing: these aren’t the most fun things. But in this case, boring might be better.

Photos by Allison Johnson/The Verge